


Walking that Mile

by Nomolosk



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Body Swap, Identity Reveal, Kwami Shenanigans
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-07
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-13 23:22:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29908650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nomolosk/pseuds/Nomolosk
Summary: Nino and Alya wake up in the wrong bodies. Several things result from this, including, but not limited to, identity reveals and a better understanding of what their respective best friends are going through.
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Nino Lahiffe, Alya Césaire & Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug
Comments: 31
Kudos: 62





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Set this prompt for others to pick up... and then found I liked it too much not to write it myself. So here it is! Don't know when exactly updates will be, but I swear this one isn't going to take more than ten chapters to finish. *crosses fingers*

When Nino woke up that morning he felt a little groggy, and a little like destroying the entirety of Paris. Or France. Or maybe just a cheese danish. The point was, he felt like the world needed a little (or a lot)…  _ less _ in it. And for some reason, that was his job?

Nino blinked his eyes open, and as he yawned he genuinely felt like if he could just dislocate his jaw far enough, he could fit everything in the room inside it. His stomach growled. 

It was then that he noticed that his room didn’t look anything like his room. In fact, it looked a whole lot like… Adrien’s room. Only bigger.

MUCH bigger. 

In fact, everything around him was HUGE.

Nino seemed to be using an entire pillow as a bed, but curiously didn’t have any blankets or a tiny pillow of his own… He got up, not noticing that he wasn’t using the usual muscles to achieve this. 

He heard a door open and Adrien walked out of his bathroom in a towel. He didn’t look huge, but he didn’t look tiny either. Nino rubbed his eyes- only then noticing that he wasn’t wearing his glasses, and yet nothing was blurry or distorted.

“Uh, dude? Not to be weird on main, or anything, but uh… what am I doing here?”

Adrien glared at him.

“I don’t appreciate you making fun of Nino, Plagg. He’s my best friend, after Ladybug. How would you feel if I started trying to sound like Tikki? I mean, granted, I don’t really know what she sounds like, aside from high-pitched and cute since we didn’t get to talk much that one time, but I’m still sure I could do a better impression of her than you can do of Nino, even though you’re around him as much as I am.”

Nino stared at him, trying to figure out just where that series of sentences started making sense. Or not making sense. In fact, there was a  _ whole lot wrong _ with what his best friend had just said, but he’d said it in such a way that it was obvious Adrien didn’t think anything of it.

Nino turned around, still not noticing that he  _ wasn’t using the usual methods _ , and closed his eyes, thinking hard.

It was an akuma. It  _ had _ to be an akuma. Somehow, an akuma had shown up in the night and… and… done something. Something  _ weird. _ Something that made Adrien believe that Ladybug was his best friend, and that Nino himself was… not Nino. 

Holy crap, he needed to send out an akuma alert! And probably call Alya, too, since she would love to have his perspective on the blog… not to mention probably being worried about him when he didn’t show up to school today…

Nino started searching for his phone… and noticed his hands had changed. A LOT. 

And the floor was… pretty far down. A lot farther down than it should be…

Nino started patting himself frantically, trying to figure out what had happened. He didn’t notice that he was starting to pant in panic as he discovered that his head was now roughly the same size as the rest of his body, that his legs bent the wrong way, his body was round and bulbous, and he was entirely black- and not like the typical actually-brown type of skin-color black, but like  _ ink color _ black- and he now had a tail. A  _ tail _ .

Acting instinctively, Nino zoomed over to the mirror, needing to see for certain. But that turned out to be a bad idea as his brain immediately shut down from the visual confirmation. He just floated there, staring at the little vaguely-black-cat-shaped body that wasn’t his.

It wasn’t until he was forcibly snatched from the air and shoved into a hidden pocket on the inside of Adrien’s shirt that Nino managed to come to terms with all the implications. He clutched the fabric sides of the pocket to stabilize himself against the repetitive swooping motions of his gigantic best friend walking through his equally gigantic house. He started shaking. He was distantly aware of Adrien speaking with someone older- a woman, probably Nathalie- and the clink of cutlery on china as Adrien ate breakfast. That realization snapped him out of his funk as his own stomach growled again- loudly. 

There was an awkward pause, then, “I’ll have the cook send out more eggs,” and the clacking of heels on the tile floor. A sudden breath of fresher air as Adrien pulled his shirt open and glared down at him.

“Plagg!” he hissed. “You’re going to give me away at this rate!”

“I’m sorry,” Nino whispered back. “I’m just hungry.”

Adrien rolled his eyes. “You’re always hungry,” he grumped, but then he glanced to the side and shoved a piece of blue-veined cheese into the pocket. Nino wrinkled his nose- he usually didn’t care much for cheese, especially the more pungent kinds- but then the smell hit him and it smelled… good? Like,  _ really _ good. He took a little nibble, just to see… and before he knew it the entire chunk- which had been the size of literally his entire body- was gone, and he felt pleasantly full.

Nino braced himself and endured the disorienting sensations of Adrien moving around once more as he collected his school books and left the house. He had a few more moments of panic as he realized that his own family would have no idea what had happened to him. What if he was just… gone? Or worse, what if this Plagg person- whom Nino was increasingly sure was a  _ kwami _ , and oh lord how was he supposed to process  _ that?? _ \- was now occupying  _ Nino’s _ body?

Needless to say, Nino did a whole lot of freaking out on the short drive to Francoise Dupont. 

\----

Alya Cesaire wasn’t entirely unfamiliar with waking up in her best friend’s room. In fact, the only reason she was at all disoriented was because she couldn’t remember having a sleepover the night before. It had been a school night after all, and neither set of parents was likely to allow a sleepover on a school night unless there was a school project involved.

Still… maybe she was dreaming?

Then one of Marinette’s obnoxious alarms went off, and she heard Marinette groan and the silencing of the alarm, followed by the rustle of sheets and the resuming of rhythmic breathing as Marinette once again declined to actually wake up.

“Marinette!” Alya called with a chuckle. “Come on, girl, you don’t want to be late for school…  _ again.” _

It took a moment for Alya to notice that she didn’t exactly sound like herself. It was almost like she’d somehow inhaled a lot of helium. Weird. Maybe it was some strange effect of having just woken up herself. She swallowed a couple of times and cleared her throat, then tried again.

“Marinette!  _ Get up!” _

Once again, the high squeaky voice coming out of Alya’s throat threw her. Marinette, however, groaned again and finally sat up.

“Tikki,” she whined. “Why does school have to start so  _ early?” _

Grumbling, Marinette started climbing down from her loft, but Alya was too hung up on the strange name to notice that everything was about four times the size it should be- including her best friend.

“Hey Marinette?” she asked, deciding to worry about her change in voice later, “Why am I here?”

“What do you mean?” Marinette asked in return, voice a little muffled by the washcloth she was using. “You’re always here.”

“Um… not really? I mean, I’m here a lot, sure, but you know… I do have my own family and… apartment. Not to mention Nino.”

“What are you talking about,” Marinette asked, frowning as she looked up from her morning ablutions. “You’ve always told me that kwamis don’t have families in the human sense.”

Alya froze. “What.”

Marinette straightened up and fixed her with a look Alya knew all too well. It was her ‘something weird is going on and I’m going to find out what it is’ look. Alya had her own version of that same look, but it usually had a whole lot more excitement and less determination.

“What’s going on, Tikki,” she said, fisting her hands on her hips in a stance that, all of a sudden, looked entirely too familiar. 

Alya started hyperventilating. Several things were becoming clear to her and she honestly didn’t know what to do with the information.

One- her best friend was under the impression that Alya was someone named Tikki, and there was a clear indication that Tikki was supposed to be a kwami.

Alya knew about kwamis because she’d met Trixx, who had helped her become Rena Rouge. As far as she knew, however,  _ Marinette _ had no idea what kwamis were. She briefly considered that ridiculous game show that Madame Mendeleiev went on… trying to prove the existence of kwamis. But that wouldn’t have given Marinette enough information on kwamis to have any knowledge on whether or not they had families- especially since their science teacher had not presented any compelling evidence of kwamis existence.

“Marinette, who do you think I am?” she asked, slowly and carefully.

Marinette frowned even harder. “You’re Tikki, the ladybug kwami?”

Alya gasped. “The… the… you… you’re! Oh my god. You’re Ladybug!”

Marinette came closer, and Alya just then noticed how much larger she was compared to Alya’s current size. She started hyperventilating, even as Marinette’s enormous hands came up to gently cradle her.

“Tikki,  _ what’s going on? _ You’ve never acted like this before, even when you were sick, you didn’t lose your memory! Do I need to get out the Guardian’s notes? I mean, I don’t know how much time I can steal before school starts, and then I’ll have to figure out what’s wrong before I can-”

“Stop!” Alya shouted, instinctively flinging herself forward to try and shake her friend out of her spiral. All she managed to do was cling to her cheek with both… nubs. She didn’t have hands anymore.

Alya shook that off and tried to focus. “Marinette, I’m not Tikki! I’m  _ Alya!  _ And you’re  _ Ladybug _ , oh my god, I can’t believe I didn’t see it, all those lame excuses and the ditching plans and disappearing during akuma attacks and  _ you look exactly like her _ -”

It was Marinette’s turn to shake Alya out of a spiral, grabbing her with one hand and staring at her wide eyed.

“Alya?” she whispered, in the same terrified tone Alya had heard her use when she got really deep into catastrophizing. The only difference was that she wasn’t shrieking, and this had nothing to do with her crush on Adrien.

Alya nodded. “I don’t know what happened. I fell asleep in my own bed last night, and then I woke up here. I… I thought maybe we’d had a sleepover that I... somehow didn’t remember? But then you kept calling me  _ Tikki _ , and then you called me a  _ kwami _ , and oh heavens, being picked for Rena Rouge makes so much more sense now!” Another thing popped up in Alya’s brain and she gasped. “This is why you don’t like Lila!”

Marinette had simply been staring at her in shock but at the mention of Lila, she snapped back into focus.

“Yeah,” she said, looking down and away. “That’s why I don’t like Lila- or rather, it’s why I started out not liking her. Not only did she lie about being my best friend- which is Chat Noir when I’m in the suit, and  _ you _ when I’m out of it!- but she’s also been lying about a bunch of other things. She even threatened me when I refused to play along! And then she almost made good on that threat when she got me expelled that one time!” Marinette scrunched up her face. “I still don’t know why she decided to lie to Mr. Damocles so he would reverse it…”

Alya focused on her breathing. “Okay. Okayokayokay. I can deal with this. My best friend is freakin’  _ Ladybug _ , and the girl I’ve been trying to give the benefit of the doubt is… actually not a good person at all. Not to mention, somehow I’ve taken the place of Ladybug’s  _ kwami. _ Okay.” Alya floated there for a moment, processing. “Actually,” she said, excitement starting to replace her initial shock, “I think it really is okay! I can… I can deal with this. Oh girl, I can  _ more _ than deal with this!”

“I’m sorry you found out like this, though,” Marinette said, clutching her arms and hunching in on herself. “I… I wish I could say that I’m happy you know, but I’m not.  _ No one _ is supposed to know- that was true even before I became the Guardian, and now… now it’s just not safe anymore. I’m going to have to give the earrings to someone else.” She scrunched her eyes shut and clutched her head in anxiety. “Except I have no idea who to give them to! Oh  _ why _ didn’t Master Fu give the Guardianship to someone else?”

“Whoa, hold up,” Alya interrupted, falling back into her usual attitude. “Why do you have to give up being Ladybug? It’s just me, and you  _ know _ I wouldn’t betray you, bestie!”

“It’s not that, Alya, of course I trust you. It’s Hawkmoth I don’t trust. You’ve already been exposed as a back-up hero and he’s gotta be watching you and your family… you could give something away without even realizing it, and then he could use your family against you, just like he did with Queen Bee on Heroes Day!”

_ “Or,” _ Alya interjected, “Instead of being a liability, I could be an asset. Think about it, Marinette! You already have so much on your plate- being Ladybug  _ and _ the Guardian, plus everything else you’ve got going on! Let me help you,” she coaxed. “At the very least I can cover for you sometimes when there’s an akuma attack. I can say you went to the nurse, or that you hid somewhere else, or that you were with me at the site of the attack- which wouldn’t even be a lie! You could loan me the fox miraculous for a couple of fights when it’s not actually needed to fight the akuma, of course, and I’ll use it to create an illusion of Marinette-you that I can capture on video! No one would think you were actually Ladybug after that, right?”

“I-” Marinette cut herself off, squinting off into the distance. “That’s… that’s actually not a bad plan. But I should talk to Tikki about it- it’s not a good idea to use the miraculous for selfish reasons.”

Alya scoffed and crossed the strange appendages that served her as arms. “Pretty sure that if keeping your identity secret is as big of a deal as you think it is, using a miraculous to make sure of that isn’t considered selfish use.”

For some reason Marinette flushed at that and started poking her index fingers together and darting her eyes back and forth.

“Wait… I know that look,” Alya teased. “You’ve already done that, haven’t you? When? WHEN? Tell me everything, I  _ have _ to know deets!” She then held up her nubs placatingly at Marinette’s raised eyebrow and half-hearted glare. “Strictly off the record, Best Friends secret code, of course!”

Marinette gave in and grinned, and there was quite a bit of both mischief and pride in it.

“Alright, alright,” she giggled. “I’ll tell you all about it, but only on the strict understanding that I’m going to be doing my best to find some kind of memory erasing spell for when you go back to normal, understand? Ack! But right now I have to get ready for school!”

Marinette started darting around her room at top speed, while Alya floated in mid-air, watching. She’d realized a while ago that her own family might be worried about her… but she couldn’t seem to focus on that. She felt bad about it, but this was just too exciting! She finally knew who was under Ladybug’s mask, and to be honest, while she was still having trouble connecting the girl who didn’t even have the guts to confess to her crush with the seemingly fearless superhero who routinely threw herself into dangerous situations to protect Paris, she couldn’t help being absurdly proud and happy that it turned out to be her own best friend.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nino learns what it's like to be a kwami, Plagg shows up, and Adrien learns the truth.

It was weird being carted around by Adrien, Nino decided. It was like he was nothing more than a pen or an eraser or something- just along for the ride with no say in what happened around them. It was also hard to tell where exactly Adrien was without seeing his surroundings. Nino found that his nose and ears got sharper as a result, and after a while he could start to guess where they were based on scent and sound.

The opening and closing of lockers and the chatter of other students told him when they were in the locker room, for example. Adrien stopped there to drop off his clean fencing gear, and while the locker door was still open and shielding them from sight, he opened his shirt and looked down at Nino.

Nino stared back up at him, uncomprehending. Adrien started frowning. “What are you waiting for?”

Nino grinned nervously, and Adrien rolled his eyes. “Look, I put a whole wheel of camembert in there this morning. But that’s all you’re getting unless there’s an akuma, so make sure it lasts, okay?”

Nino gathered from this, and from Adrien’s not so subtle point at his messenger bag, that he was supposed to stay in the bag for the rest of the day. Which was honestly a relief. He didn’t know how kwamis felt about it, but being inside his best friend’s shirt all the time was starting to hit him as kinda creepy. Without further ado, he zipped down into the opened messenger bag, and tried to make himself comfortable among the books and Adrien’s tablet. It was a lot easier than he’d imagined. 

Until Adrien actually picked up the bag, that is. He quickly decided he would rather deal with the uncomfortable closeness of being in Adrien’s shirt pocket than riding around in his bag. It was a lot less steady or stable, and that was saying something! The books and things shifted with every movement, and since the bag occasionally bounced off Adrien’s hip or leg, or bumped into something else, Nino soon felt pretty battered. It didn’t really  _ hurt _ , but it was still uncomfortable. He wondered how Plagg dealt with it.

That had him thinking about whether or not Adrien’s kwami would show up to school in his body. What kind of kwami was he? Adrien seemed to think he was obsessed with cheese- which explained a whole lot, actually- but beyond that, and the vague feeling that he might be kind of a goofball who teased people a lot, Nino had no idea. The very brief meetings he’d had with the turtle kwami Wayzz had given Nino the impression that he was a chill, cool little dude. He’d often wondered what it would be like to have a little friend like that constantly with him, and he’d vaguely thought that all kwamis were probably like that. But he was starting to wonder. 

A LOT about this situation was making him wonder.

Nino tried to pay attention when Adrien got to the classroom, but the barrier of the messenger bag and the general cacophony of voices made it hard to pick out anything specific. He did hear Marinette’s distinct word-vomit at one point, and felt another surge of pity for his friend. Now that he knew Adrien was Chat Noir, he also knew that Marinette- as cool as she was- just didn’t stand a chance with him. Everyone knew that Chat Noir was in love with Ladybug, after all.

He also noted that Alya never showed up, and that  _ did _ worry him. Had she been out hunting the akuma all night? Had she been switched, too? He focused during roll call, and when Ms. Bustier called Alya’s name, Marinette said that she’d texted her that she was sick.

While Nino felt bad for his girlfriend, at least she hadn’t been switched with a complete stranger. Although, he suspected she probably wouldn’t  _ mind _ finding herself in  _ his _ current situation, what with running the Ladyblog and everything- she’d probably try to find out as much about kwamis and their powers as she possibly could, even if she never printed a word of it. Maybe Nino should experiment a little, just to be able to tell her?

But then he remembered that identities had to remain secret, and if he even hinted to Alya that he knew who Chat Noir was, much less that he’d been stuck in the body of Chat Noir’s kwami for a while, he knew Alya would never let him alone. And the absolute last thing he wanted was for Adrien to lose the freedom that being Chat Noir gave him because of his own big mouth. Dude needed an outlet, and it honestly made Nino feel better to know he could escape that cold monolith whenever he wasn’t being watched.

It also explained a LOT about Chat’s attitude. No wonder the cat was always punning and joking around. Even getting smacked around by akumas couldn’t be as bad as what his own father put him through. Especially since he actually got to express himself during akuma attacks instead of always having to put on a front for the press.

As the morning wore on, Nino got more and more bored. By lunchtime he was almost hoping for an akuma attack, if only to have a chance of talking to Adrien and getting a leg up on finding a solution to this problem. To that end, the instant Adrien stopped by his locker, Nino flew up and hovered in front of him, though he stayed inside the locker so hopefully no one would see him.

“Adrien!” he hissed quietly. “We need to talk.”

Adrien frowned at him, looking around anxiously. “What? Is it Ladybug? Did she send me a message?”

Nino’s mouth gaped open for a minute. He didn’t even know that was a possibility, though Alya had caught both the heroes on camera doing… something… with their respective weapons.

“Uh, no… but we need to talk. It’s important.”

“If this is about cheese…” Adrien began.

“No, no! Nothing to do with cheese.”

Adrien looked skeptical, but nodded. “Alright, just wait til we get home. I’ll ask to have lunch in my room instead of the dining room.”

Nino nodded, then zipped into Adrien’s shirt pocket before he could order him back into the bag. The trips between classes and then back to the locker room had  _ not _ been pleasant.

He was all set to stay in Adrien’s shirt through the ride back to the mansion, but instead there was a rude jerk to the right and Nino almost tumbled out of the pocket entirely.

“Hey there,  _ bro.” _ Nino heard his own voice say. “Let’s do lunch! Don’t worry, I already bribed your bodyguard.”

“Nino!” He heard Adrien exclaim. “Where were you? You missed all the morning classes, but I took notes for both of us.”

“Eh, decided to take the morning off, sleep in. Not everyday I have that opportunity, you know? Besides, school is  _ highly _ overrated.”

Okay. Whoever this was in Nino’s body was seriously starting to piss him off. Nino might not look or act much like it, but he did actually care about school, and worked at getting good grades. Nino hissed without realizing he was going to, and received a smack that Adrien then turned into a smoothing down of his overshirt.

“Nino” started laughing, and there was another lurch as they both started walking along the street. 

“So where are we going?”

Nino hung on to the sides of the special pocket and grudgingly smiled at the suppressed giddiness he could hear in Adrien’s voice. At least whoever was in his body cared enough about Adrien to take him out to lunch.

“Oh, I think you’ll be familiar with it. It’s this famous fromagerie. They have  _ everything!” _

Nino shuddered at the very thought, then realized that Adrien had stopped walking.

“You hate cheese.”

“Pretty sure I don’t,” Nino replied with what sounded like a nervous chuckle. “I’d better not- it’s my one true love!” Now he sounded downright anxious.

“Okay…” Adrien said, moving backward. The shirt shifted a bit, but Nino couldn’t tell what Adrien was doing until “Nino” spoke again.

“What are you doing? We should get a move on, huh? Don’t want to be back late, right?” 

“Nino” still sounded nervous.

“Checking the Ladyblog. Alya’s home sick today, but I’m sure she would have posted anything about a cheese-obsessed akuma by now.” Then Nino heard him mutter, “I just bet  _ you’d _ love that, wouldn’t you? But don’t get your hopes up- if there  _ is _ a cheese-obsessed akuma floating around somewhere, we  _ are _ going to fight and defeat it no matter what you say.”

“Heheh! There’s no akuma! I just love cheese! You seriously didn’t know that about me?”

There was a pregnant silence. Then “Nino” sighed. “Alright, you got me. But you seriously didn’t figure it out sooner?”

“How could I figure out there was an akuma on the loose without either an update on the Ladyblog, or an akuma alert?” Adrien asked, sounding puzzled.

There was another pause, then Adrien stumbled forward and the light changed- instead of soft, white luminescence it all turned to blue and purple shadows. Then something poked him.

“Alright, come on out,” “Nino” said. “I know you’re in there.”

Adrien laughed nervously. “What? I don’t… there’s nothing in my shirt! It’s just… my shirt! I mean, sometimes I keep some cheese in there, you know, for a snack. Gotta keep my, uh, blood sugar up!”

Adrien was babbling, which was something Nino had never heard before. Usually, his bro kept it more together than that… then again, being outed- which was what this looked like- was probably something he avoided at all costs. Nino weighed the pros and cons, sighed, and then climbed out of the pocket and pulled the fabric back so he could float in the air between the two boys.

“I assume this body is yours?” he asked “Nino.”

“Got it in one,” “Nino” said, making finger guns at him. Nino had never realized just how stupid that looked, and resolved never to make that gesture again. “The name’s Plagg. Nice to meet you formally.”

Adrien stared at them both, wide eyes darting between them. Nino ducked his head and waved sheepishly.

“Hey bro. Sorry about all this, but… well, it’s me. Nino.”

“Nino?” Adrien breathed, still looking between them. “Plagg?”

“In the flesh!” Plagg said, laughing. “Literally, for once!”

“Ladybug’s going to kill me,” Adrien whispered. “No, worse- she’s going to take my miraculous. I can’t do that again, Plagg, I can’t lose you again!”   
  


“Whoa, wait, hold it right there!” Plagg commanded. It was weird hearing himself be so assertive. “Remember New York? She said she couldn’t do this without you! Besides, this isn’t your fault, Adrien!”

Nino suddenly remembered New York… how Marinette had succeeded in getting Gabriel to let Adrien come… the televised fight with the akumatized Technomancer, in which everything had gone so badly… he didn’t know what had happened between the two of them later, but clearly it hadn’t been good.

“What happened?” he asked in a small voice. Adrien looked positively broken at the memory, and Nino couldn’t help but think it was the same look that was on his face right before his jerk of a dad sent the car to take him to the airport. Now that he thought of it, that must have been right after whatever it was had happened. No wonder he’d looked so crushed. At the time, Nino had thought it was just because Marinette hadn’t urged him to stay.

“Eh, water under the bridge,” Plagg said, waving the whole thing away. “The point is, she’s not going to take your miraculous.”

“But how am I supposed to transform?” Adrien asked, waving at Nino and Plagg. “Would it even work?”

“Oh, it’ll work,” Plagg said confidently. “You just won’t be as powerful or resilient as you’re used to.”

“Great,” Adrien said, running one hand down his face. “But how are we going to fix this?”

Plagg pursed his lips and looked up thoughtfully. “Usually, this kind of thing only lasts a couple of days- a week at most. I’ve heard of people going a month, but that’s never happened to me.”

“You mean this has happened before?” Nino asked.

“Oh yeah. The old Guardians used to do this to holders who were mistreating their kwamis. You know, get them to realize what it was like on the other side. It usually worked pretty well. Didn’t happen often to me, though- at least not as punishment. If someone was misusing me, it was usually because my ring had been stolen, and then the Guardians would do it so I could bring the ring back to the temple in my holder’s body. Never happened like this, though,” he finished, looking down at Nino’s body.

“The Guardians?” Adrien said, latching on to that term. “You mean…  _ Ladybug thinks I’ve been abusing you??” _

Plagg jumped, then started laughing, while Nino looked on, confused. “Pretty sure she doesn’t, dude?” Nino tried, floating even closer. Adrien grabbed him from the air and held him close, but still stood staring at Plagg.

“You’re so paranoid!” Plagg said, still chuckling. Nino felt offended on Adrien’s behalf- it was obvious from his labored breathing that his bro genuinely believed Ladybug had such a bad opinion of him. 

“No, no, I’m sure she doesn’t think that,” Plagg continued. “What I think is that she finally got to that part in the book, and decided to use it to try and get Hawkmoth’s miraculous back. If Nooroo was in control of Hawkmoth’s body, it would be a lot easier. She just… didn’t narrow it down enough? I’m not sure how it works- kwamis are never allowed to know more than basic information.”

Adrien’s breathing started to even out again. Nino realized then that he’d been purring, and stopped, a little embarrassed. 

“So… this is all a ploy to discover Hawkmoth?” Adrien asked.

“Yeah, I think so,” Plagg said, shrugging with Nino’s shoulders.

“Oh. She’s so clever…” Adrien trailed off. Nino looked up to see a star-struck expression on his face.

“And here we go again,” Plagg complained, rolling his eyes. Then he locked eyes with Nino and continued. “Seriously, you don’t know! Night and day, practically every waking minute that he’s alone, he’s gushing about Ladybug. Or Pigtails, and what a great  _ friend _ she is.”

“Pigtails?” Nino asked.

“He  _ means _ Marinette,” Adrien said sourly, coming out of his daze. “Try getting him to say her actual name, though.”

Plagg grinned. “Can I help it if all your human names sound alike? It’s just easier to use nicknames.”

Nino looked up at Adrien. “Do I want to know what he calls me?”

Adrien laughed at that. 

“No, probably not!” he said, rubbing a hand over his face. “I don’t know how this is going to end, but… I’m actually really glad you know now. I don’t like keeping secrets, even when it’s necessary. Let’s go get lunch and enjoy this before it all blows up in my face, okay?”

  
“To the fromagerie!” Plagg yelled, making the alleyway echo. Nino shook his head, but ducked back inside Adrien’s shirt. He couldn’t wait to see Plagg’s face when his beloved cheese hit  _ Nino’s _ tastebuds.


End file.
